Pawn to D8
by Anachronistic Anglophile
Summary: Post DH. Severus survives the Shrieking Shack and ruminates on how he always was just a pawn. What does the chess piece do when the game ends?


_Disclaimer: I'm not Just Kidding when I say that I'm not J.K. (Rowling). _

Even though it's a day late, this is for Severus' birthday.

**Pawn to D8  
**

May 3, 1998

_There was never a more useful chess piece than I_, Severus mused as he lay on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. _I am the bitter pawn who has worked for both colors on the board. I elected to fight for the white many years ago, but at this point I almost don't care who wins. It's been too long a game._

But this was a lie, he acknowledged—for he did care. He did care very much who won the war. _I've not invested all this energy for naught, I hope! Twenty years of penitence would be ill spent for a lost cause. _Perhaps his thoughts were becoming careless as a result of the blood loss.

He wasanxious to raise his leaden lids and put himself back to rights, but Potter and the Granger girl were being slow to leave. And he couldn't move until they had truly left him for dead. 

Would they be imbeciles enough to drag him along to Madam Pomfrey? It would be unpleasant, he knew, once they pulled the plug on his masquerade. In secret, he'd dreamt that the boy _would _care just enough to see that his sorry corpse wasn't left to rot, but, Severus being a realist, knew that Harry wouldn't do that. It was best that the boy forget about him, of course, but Snape still felt bitter that Potter didn't bother to pay some last respect to his old teacher and protector.

_For that was my main role_, he acknowledged with a wince. _If Dumbledore was the white player, then Harry was the white queen, and the damn old coot's The Greater Good was the white king. And all I did was provide shelter for the queen until it was his time to be slain. _

Finally the brat and his female friend were gone, and Severus sat up to address his wound.

_And if Voldemort was the black player, and HIS utopian ideals made up the black king, then who was his chief executor and queen? _

Severus couldn't rightfully answer this question. Granted, he was distracted; the little vial of phoenix tears that he had was difficult to open. Soon, though, the contents were duly swallowed and applied to the hole in his neck.

The drops healed him, but he was still left weak, and he wished for a blood-replenishing potion.

_Did Voldemort think so foolishly as to suppose that I was his black queen? _He wondered this while he crept through the tunnel. Shirking like a spooked horse as his robe caught on roots that protruded from the earthen walls, Severus stewed in the memory of The Day that the Marauders nearly murdered him. He would never forget it—for who could forget such a close scrape with death? Or how much the Marauders must have hated him, to do such a horrible thing as they did?

_No one's ever thought much of me except myself, I suppose_, he ruminated, stepping from the shadow of the tunnel into that of the Whomping Willow. The heavy black of the spring night wasn't as dense as before, and there was crispness in the Scottish air.

He emerged on the outskirts of a battlefield just in time to see Rubeus Hagrid weeping, bearing the broken body of a boy. And Severus could do nothing more than cringe, swallow firmly, and make a decision.

Should he fly from the sinking ship or go down with the crew? The choice was not a difficult one; as a lowly pawn, he had no right to preserve his own life. He'd been ordered around for so long, he couldn't conceive a world where he was his own master. The white queen (Potter) had sacrificed himself for the white side, so certainly Severus--nothing more than a peon in the company of princes--could do the same.

When the Longbottom boy rose from the spell of the body-bind to fight, Severus couldn't help but do the same. He joined in the fray, anonymous under a glamour spell, sending his favorite _Sectumsempra _towards choice targets. Never did he attack anyone outright; that wasn't his style. Instead, he threw wrathful curses at the black pieces that were threatening the white.

_A black bishop and a black pawn are slain, saving the white rook,_ he thought as he attacked Augustus Rookwood and Marius Devon , who were fighting Minerva McGonagall. She looked aghast as her attackers fell on their faces, her eyes narrow as she tried to decipher whom her ally was. Severus slunk away before he could hear her brusque thanks.

_Gone are two more black pawns! _ He was momentarily cheered as the Death Eaters surrounding Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood faltered.

However, this small victory was not much, as he was soon reminded. _Down goes one white pawn_, he remarked, for, in the corner of his eye, he witnessed the tragic fall of Colin Creevy to one Epistopholes Rawdug,. Granted, the boy was greedily inserting new film in his camera, but Rawdug's curse was a sneak-attack, aimed between the adolescent's shoulder blades. Severus' disgust at the boy's paparazzi behavior did nothing to lessen the blame he thrust upon himself. The child didn't even have a chance.

And soon it was all over. His reputation was in tatters, of course, as was his heart, for the stupid Potter boy had announced his loyalties to the world...and the reason behind his loyalties...and for this Severus would never forgive him. But beyond this injury, Severus was alive. Weak, exhausted, and numb, but breathing and healing.

_What do I do with myself? _He was struck by the new burden of freedom that he felt weighing down upon him. It had never been his expectation to survive the war. _I know my job was to prevent the least number of white pieces from being destroyed, but I rather always thought that someday I'd die in the process of such protection. _

He shed no tears as he walked among the dead. His soul was too weary, too relieved, too anxious to do so. Instead, he thought about what he should do _now_. And the more he thought about what he should do _now_, the more _now _seemed to scare him.

So he went home. No one noticed when he dashed down to his dungeons, gathered up his few most precious and sentimental belongings—letters, photographs, and other things that were Of Lily—but once he had these in his hands, he still felt empty. So he walked out the great doors, left open to admit the cool morning breeze as the sun rose over the castle. It wasn't until he was beyond the borders of Hogwarts that he thought about what he should do _now _again, but at least he had an idea.

_It'll be difficult, but it's what I've always wanted, isn't it? _He told himself this as he apparated to a white cliff in Dover, seated himself, and made a fire. _I have always desired liberation from the shackles of two masters. Now is the time to seize the red-hot pincers and tear them off. _He told himself this as he ripped out a tangible piece of his heart, in the form of letters and photographs Of Lily, throwing it onto the fire.

_And_, he thought as he watched the papers burn, _I have swum the Channel, I have made it to the end of the board...to D8. Now is the time to set myself free; the game is over, and I'm a white queen now._

Becoming smug with satisfaction, he settled back, his peaceful contemplations bringing a smile to his face._ Now is the time to renew, to rebuild, to restart. _

When the fire burnt out, he apparated away to England, and in that move he stepped off the board.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

**Please review!  
**


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